Response2

I attended a presentation on global warming and I would like to expand on a graph that was presented (graph 1). Like all graphs there is an implied assumption that the graph will continue indefinitely.

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        ppm    220      250    280    310        340     370
        year       15        35 55    75    95       05

But what if it didn't, what if it was like graph 2. It implies that when the carbon dioxide in our atmosphere reaches 400ppm it will suddenly jump to the upper line before it continues. It also implies that when we reduce the carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, the number of days over 90 degrees F will not return to its previous level until carbon dioxide goes below 250 ppm when it will then drop back down to the lower line.

    Days over 90
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        ppm 220    250 280    310 340 370 400    430
        year    15      35    55    75 95       05    25    45

You may ask how can a graph be discontinuous and the answer is very simple, because carbon dioxide is not the only variable influencing temperature. Graphs 1 and 2 show only two variables. If we were to graph all the variables we would need a multi dimensional graph, one we cannot visualize. It would display a convoluted surface that we can follow mathematically and it would not be discontinuous. If we cut such a graph along the two dimensions describing days over 90 degrees and carbon dioxide the result might be graph two.

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    Time

Linear graphs rarely describe the inter action of variables in nature, most of them follow a logistics curve (graph 3). For example, photosynthesis, when light first hits a leaf nothing happens. Then after an interval of time one molecule of sugar is made, in the next interval two molecules are made, then four, then eight, then sixteen. At some point the rate of increase in the production of sugar will slow until it is constant. This happens because some limit has been reached, such as, the transportation of water or carbon dioxide into the leaf or the transportation of sugar or oxygen out of the leaf, one or more can go no faster. Again the graph implies that it will continue indefinitely, it may or it could decline slowly or it could crash depending on many variables.

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   BTU's    10     20      30     40   50     60     70

    One interaction in nature that is linear is the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of water. In fact, it is so linear, it is the definition of a quantity of heat, either the BTU or the calorie. One BTU is the amount of energy required to raise one pound of water one degree Fahrenheit (graph 4) and one calorie is the amount of energy required to raise one gram of water one degree Celsius. Most people are familiar with the term calorie as a unit of energy associated with food, but the food calorie is actually a Kcalorie, it is one thousand times the calorie. When people speak of calories in food they drop the K because an amount below a thousand calories is usually insignificant.
    Please keep in mind, that light is a form of energy that can be converted into heat when it is absorbed by the atoms and molecules in air, water, and dirt. I will use the BTU as the unit of energy in reviewing what keeps our planet warm or cold.
    First, the natural variables: heat from the sun, heat from radioactive elements in the earth, and heat left over from the formation of the earth. Our planet gets almost all of its energy from the sun. Some 5,140,000,000,000,000,000,000 BTU's per year. This is an educated guess because while the output of the sun can be measured with a fair degree of accuracy, the amount reaching the earth's surface can not because of cloud cover. The density of clouds and the area of coverage is very difficult to predict or to measure and clouds can come and go at any time. Cloud cover can change the temperature of the earth's surface by more than fifteen degrees, colder during the day and warmer at night. Clouds are the second most important variable in determining the temperature of earth.
    Also, the sun's output varies with the sun spot cycle, eleven years. Its output can increase by as much as three per cent during a sun spot maximum and decrease by one per cent during a sun spot minimum from its average output. In addition the sun spot cycle is not very consistent from one cycle to the next. For as long as we have been keeping track of weather, which is not very long, we have not been able to find a correlation between the sun spot cycle and weather except for one, major droughts tend to occur near a sunspot maximum.
    Earth gets a very small amount of energy from radioactive elements because the amount of radioactive elements in the earth is very small. In addition radioactive elements have been decaying since the earth formed; therefore there is a smaller amount of radioactive elements to create heat with each passing year. The same is true for the heat left over from the formation of the earth. Earth has been radiating this heat since it was formed. Since both are declining, neither are contributing to global warming.
    Three more variables influence the temperature of earth: the shape of orbit, the tilt of the axis of rotation, and the precession of the axis of rotation. As earth moves around the sun, the mass of the large planets Jupiter and Saturn, depending on their location in their orbits, are constantly changing earth's orbit from less elliptical to more elliptical and back again every 96,000 years. Because the mass of the earth is not distributed uniformly, the tilt of the axis of rotation changes by one half of a degree and back every 41,000 years and the axis of rotation precesses like a spinning top every 26,000 years.
    These changes cause the northern hemisphere to receive more light during part of each cycle and less the other part. Since land has a very low specific heat compared to water, it heats up much faster than water and it also cools down faster. The northern hemisphere has more land than the southern, more warm land means less ice, more cold land means more ice. Less ice means more light is absorbed by the land increasing the temperature which in turn melts more ice. More ice increases the amount of sun light reflected back into space decreasing the temperature which in turn means more ice. Therefore each condition of more or less light reaching the land becomes a self reinforcing cycle of more or less ice and more or less heat each year.
    The glaciations over the last two million years occur about every 100,000 years lasting about 70,000 years. The last glaciation ended about 10,000 years ago. All three of these variables are now moving from warm to cold and we are at a sun spot minimum so earth should be cooling down, but it is warming up. Why?
    Man made variables.
    In table one an estimate of the number of BTU's of heat the earth receives each year from the sun is given followed by the possible increase in BTU's received during a sun spot maximum. Compare that amount to the amount of BTU's added each year by the burning of fossil fuels. These numbers were calculate from www.eia.doe.gov production numbers for the year 2006 and converted to BTU's. Electricity is included because it is converted to heat when transported and used.
    Our use of fossil fuels is now approaching the amount of heat added by a sun spot maximum and we are adding this amount and increasing it each and every year, not just during sun spot maximums. Now, add in the heat increase caused by cement highways, about the same as gas, heat from asphalt roads, heat from cars sitting in the sun, they are excellent solar collectors, etc., we are approaching even closer. We have made this increase in less than 300 years, most of it in the last 40.
    By cutting down trees to grow food we have changed the albedo of our planet. Albedo is a measure of the reflectivity of a surface. This change began 8,000 years ago with the advent of agriculture and has been increasing ever since. Plants shade the ground and in doing so they reflect sun light back into space before it can heat the earth. Most of our crops do not shade the ground as efficiently as forests, thereby allowing the land to absorb more light and therefore to gain more heat each day for each acre of ground put into cultivation. We have had satellites in orbit capable of measuring this change for only twenty years, but we have been making the change for 8,000 years, we are not able to go back and measure the before in order to compare it with the after.
    All of the variables mentioned so far have nothing to do with carbon dioxide, but it is global warming. So I can confidently say 'it is more than carbon dioxide'.

coal                   199,300,000,000,000,000
Oil                      188,100,000,000,000,000
gas                    105,500,000,000,000,000
elect                     53,740,000,000,000,000

    The numbers in Table one are astronomical, so why should we be concerned about a half of a degree Celsius increase in ocean temperature. Here is a case where the scientists have done a very poor job of explanation.
    Lets calculate how many BTU's there are in a one half degree C increase in ocean temperature. The area of a sphere is equal to four times pi times the radius squared. Lets round the numbers for easy calculation, you can use more accurate numbers and a calculator and you will discover that it really doesn't make much difference, so much for the idiotological statement that science must be completely accurate to be good science.
    The diameter of earth is about 7924 miles, lets round to 8000 and divide by two to get the radius and then multiply by 5,280 feet per mile, lets use 5,000 giving 20,000,000 feet, now the square this number gives 400,000,0000,000,000, times pi, lets use 3 giving 1,200,000,000,000,000, times 4 giving 4,800,000,000,000,000.
    Now times one will give us cubic feet of water, by consulting a reference book you will find that one cubic foot of water weighs 60 pounds, multiply this by the cubic feet and adjust this number because only two thirds of the earth's surface is water, so multiply by two and divide by three then divide this in half because only about half the water is near the equator where it will receive the most heat, giving 96,000,000,000,000,000.
    Remember the definition of a BTU from above, it is the amount of energy required to raise one pound of water one degree Fahrenheit. A half a degree Celsius is .9 degrees F. Therefore a half degree C increase in ocean temperature is equal to about 96,000,000,000,000,000 BTU's. Now compare this number to the numbers in Table one and remember that the ocean temperature had been rising by about a half a degree C every decade for the last forty years and the increase in temperature goes down much more than one foot.
    You may have heard it said, 'That the poles are earth's air conditioning system', well the oceans are earth's 'temperature equalizer'. The oceans store tremendous quantities of heat when our planet heats up and release tremendous quantities of heat when our planet cools down, keeping earth's temperature more or less stable. I hope you now have an appreciation for the significance of a half degree C increase in ocean temperatures and realize that global warming is not simple.

    During my working years one of my first tasks was to measure oxygen, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide in the flue gas of our refinery furnaces and boilers, daily. I tested my equipment by measuring the oxygen content of air and recorded all results in a bound lab book.
    The first thing that disturbed me was I never got a reading of 21% oxygen, a number I had heard repeated many times, I did get a reading of about .02% for carbon dioxide. I checked the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, it gave 20.99% which I later learned was rounded up from 20.986%. Even later, I learned that this number was not accurate, but it was for the equipment with which it was measured in 1945.
    Most of my readings were a little under 20.99, I had to estimate the last number. About five years later I got a reading of 20.97, I repeated the measurement several times without change. I had not paid attention because when I checked previous results I could see a downward trend over the years.
    The methods for measuring oxygen have improved since 1945, in 1976 it 20.9476%, in 1988 20.9429, and in 1999 20.9362. Doing the arithmetic, we decreased the oxygen in our atmosphere by 3.6ppm per year from 76 to 88 and by 5.6ppm per year from 88 to 99, a disturbing trend. (ppm equals parts per million, one ppm equals .0001%)
    If you are willing to assume that the increase in oxygen occurred during the Carboniferous Period (70m) 345m years ago. Divide 210,000ppm by 70m equals .003ppm per year. The comparison is even greater if you assume the increase in oxygen occurred over 345m years .0006ppm per year.
    Most of the time our actions are dwarfed by natural causes, for example the heat we get from the sun, an enormous number. Of all our activities, the comparison of the decrease in oxygen is the only one that dwarfs nature. This comparison proves we are changing our environment beyond any doubt because there is only one way to lose that much oxygen, the burning of fossil fuels. This is why I think the measurement of oxygen is the most significant measurement in support of global warming.
    If you think 5.6 ppm is a small amount of oxygen to lose, take the square feet we calculated in 'Its more than carbon dioxide' for the surface of the earth and multiply by 144 square inches and then multiply by 14.7 pounds per square inch, then multiply by .0000056 and the decrease in oxygen equals 56,000,000,000,000 pounds of oxygen or 28,000,000,000 tons of oxygen.

    The third most important variable influencing the temperature of earth is the green house gases, methane and carbon dioxide plus some man made gases. To the best of our knowledge, after the earth was formed and cooled enough for water to condense there was no oxygen in the atmosphere only nitrogen, carbon dioxide, methane, water, and a number of other gases in small amounts.
    Oxygen increased very slowly until the Carboniferous Period. As plants grew rapidly on land, carbon dioxide began to decrease and as plant material was buried in the ocean before it could decompose, oxygen began to accumulate in the atmosphere at a faster pace. (please go to Newspaper articles and read 'Oxygen' and 'Deceptively Simple'.)
    The decrease in carbon dioxide caused the average temperature of earth to decrease. Eventually when carbon dioxide was near zero and the variables mentioned in 'Its more than carbon dioxide' moved to their coldest position a glaciation occurred which destroyed many plants and slowed the growth of the remaining plants.
    My guess is that glaciation lasted until volcanoes released enough carbon dioxide and when the variables mentioned in 'Its more than carbon dioxide' moved to their warmest position, earth warmed up and the glaciation ended only to be repeated again.
    Asteroid impacts or volcanoes may also have triggered glaciations by putting large volumes of dust or ash and sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere blocking sun light for a long enough period of time to make earth cold. Such events would cause the cycle of glaciations to be irregular as witnessed in geological record.
    Most estimates of food production ignore the limiting factor of carbon dioxide. We cannot produce more food than the amount of carbon dioxide available, when carbon dioxide in the atmosphere goes to zero, plants will stop growing.

    In 1963 Saudi Arabia sent a signal when it tried to increase the price of oil, a signal was sent again with the war 1967, and again with the oil embargo 1974, plus five more with each major increase in the price of oil, but very few people noticed. Even fewer knew what the signals meant. It meant our world had changed. It meant that the production of crude oil was not keeping up with demand.
    In 1964 I began to follow oil production and consumption, shortly thereafter I added population, food, carbon dioxide, GDP, and national debt. I had followed the sun spot cycle since college. I am well aware that our planet is finite and that we can not continue doing what we are doing.
    This prompted me to calculate how many people earth could feed. My number, 22 billion, disagreed with the very optimistic views of the time and my calculations indicated that we would have to make drastic changes by 2010 when our population reached my prediction of 8 billion people. 2010 was also a predicted sun spot maximum, the baby boom retirement, and my prediction of when oil consumption would be greater than production.
    When coupled with increasing private and public debt, increasing carbon dioxide, increasing ocean temperatures, melting of the ice sheets and glaciers, etc., I became very concerned and discouraged because I could not see any changes being made to address my concerns.
    My population prediction will not come true, WHO's new prediction is 8 billion in 2030 because of AIDS, what away to get a reprieve, and the new estimate for when the sun spot maximum will begin is now March 08 and to peak in late 11 to mid 12.

All living creatures are taking creatures. Humans seem to be the only wanting creatures, we take and consume much more than we need, all others take only what is needed. Bigger is not better. More is not better.
Our impact on our earth follows the following equation.

    Each person, each home, each business, each motor, each appliance, etc., is a point source. As our population increases so does the number of point sources so does our economy so does consumption so does pollution. Remember to include the infrastructure point sources that expand and contract with population, such as, planes, trains, buses, taxi cabs, trash trucks, fire trucks, police cars, street lights, water pumps, sewer pumps, etc.
    We have made some progress in decreasing pollution, but as the number of point sources increase, the progress in decreasing pollution is over come by the increase in number of point sources.
    An excellent example of this is the Los Angeles basin. Both people and businesses have reduced the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by each point source, but the number of point sources have increased so much that the total amount carbon dioxide is still increasing.
    This point is critical to our survival, so allow me to explain it in another way. First in an exaggerated manner and then in a more realisitc manner.
    Family A is the first family in a new subdivision and their furnace emits 100 units of carbon dioxide. They add more insulation and reduce their carbon dioxide emissions by 3% to 97 units. Now family B moves into their subdivision and add more insulation to their home so that they emit the same number of units of carbon dioxide, but even with this 3% reduction the subdivision now emits 194 units of carbon dioxide, a very large increase.
    Now a more realistic example. Lets start with a subdivision of 100 families, each family emitting 100 units of carbon dioxide for a total of 10,000. All of them reduce their carbon dioxide emissions by 3%, but the population increases by 4% to 104 families. Now the subdivision emits 10088 units of carbon dioxide even with a 3% reduction because the growth rate of the population, 4%, was greater than the rate of reduction.
    This arithmetic applies to the population impact equation.

    Our population is increasing at a rate of about 1% so it appears that the rate of population increase in our country is not significant, but that ignores the multiplier effect of the number of point sources. The key to understanding our current situation is to realize that population growth is not the only consideration.
    We have taught the rest of the world very well, consume, consume, consume; bigger is better; more is better and they have learned very well.
So while the rate of population increase is not very large, the rate of energy consumption is increasing at about 4 - 7% a year. When multiplied by 6+ billion people this number is very significant.
    This means we must make major changes so the decrease in pollution at each point source is great enough to over come the increase in the number of point sources plus the increase in consumption at each point source. If we are to survive as a species we must stop kidding ourselves and face the hard choices we must make. Only by decreasing our population, decreasing the number of point sources, decreasing our consumption, decreasing our pollution, and by increasing efficiency can we increase the quality of life, we must change our life style and we must do it soon.

When I add the decrease in oxygen to my other concerns it allows me to confidently say, 'it is more than global warming'.

    I'm glad I'm an American but I'm no longer proud because I'm appalled at our ignorance in seven areas. I find it incomprehensible in five areas because we are so dependent on all five; democracy, mass production, free markets, energy, and science. In two areas I can understand our ignorance, knowledge of our limits and ideologies.
    How many people can name the advantages and disadvantages and or the requirements and limitations of the first five areas?
    I will only comment on three of these areas. First I will compare science with ideology and both with idiotology and in the process mention some of our limits and end with more on our limits.

    Independent                     Ideologue                Idiotologue
    testability                       a chosen truth             actively
    repeatability                       a belief                    perverts
    predictability                      guides                     the truth
    can be disproved         action justifies         justifies action

    Science is independent of the person who performs the science, independent of the institution where it is performed, and independent of the equipment used. If it can't be tested it isn't science, if it can't be repeated it is not science, if it doesn't predict it is not science. Science can always be disproved when new data is discovered, in other words science has a mechanism for change.
    This means that anyone anywhere performing the same science can come to the same conclusion using their own equipment, in their place of choosing.
    The next statement is very important.

In fact, science has proved it cannot answer all questions.
Science does not have to completely determined to be good science, much of science is probabilistic. The accuracy of science is determined by the following, counting, measuring, comparing, observing. Counting can be completely accurate, measuring can be accurate within limits so it is less accurate than counting, comparing even less accurate, and observing the least accurate.

    Some people talk about the industrial age, the jet age, the computer age, the space age, or the information age. Well, I call the last 25+ years the idiotologue age.
    I blame the media for this new age because they have allowed advertisers, politicians, pundits, and religious groups to abuse the media. The media did not expose their lies or hold them accountable. When money is the only concern we lose everything.
    An ideologue is one who holds blindly to an ideology. All people need and use ideologies, even scientists. Ideologies are the basis of our beliefs and provide answers when science can't. Ideologies guide our thoughts and actions. Our thoughts and action justifies our ideologies. Ideologies held in common help bond a community together. Remember, ideologies came first, then science.

'The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.'
Leonardo da Vinci

An idiotologue is one who intentionally perverts the truth, they lie. Idiotologies restrict their thinking and actions. Idiotologies justify their thoughts and actions. So if you believe an idiotologue what does that make you.
More than one third of our population expect to be lied to, in fact, they don't trust people who don't lie to them. Many people think it is OK to lie provided they lie in the right way.

    What a reversal, the truth becomes a lie and a lie becomes the truth and they know the truth and if you know the truth what more is there to learn.
    All ideologies have downsides, one of which is the uneducated and the unthinking tend to think that their ideology is ALL they need to know, (restricted thinking). Very few ideologies have mechanism for change, most limit exposure to errors, most restrict the introduction of new ideas, etc.
    When ideologies become exclusive instead of inclusive the people involved tend to become self righteous, a very dangerous condition which tends to limit thinking even further.
    Restricted thinking reduces the number of ways a person can think and the result is fewer ideas for solutions to problems, sometime so severely restricted that suicide is the only solution available.
    The most common ideologies: religion, politics, and economics. Most people think of religion as being good, but it has all the limitations of any ideology.

    We are not as rational as we would like to believe. We must know our limits and the limits of our tools.
    Our brains do not receive the sense signal that our senses do, our brains only receive a nerve impulse, an electronic signal, a bit, from our senses. (go to 'Thoughts' and read 'I can't see that' and chapters 2,3,4 and 5 for what follows below.)
    From shortly after our brains begin to form, they are receiving these signals and from then until we die, our brains assign a value to each of these signals, creating data which our brains store or reinforce data already stored. When sufficient data has been stored our brains analyze the stored data creating information, we call this process learning. As we mature our brains analyze the information creating knowledge, we call this process thinking. When people use knowledge well we call it wisdom.
    Much of the data our brains create remains stored for life, some data are replaced when a significant event occurs to cause our brains to replace it, some data is very transient. The vast bulk of the bits receive by our senses is ignored otherwise our limited brain capacity would be swamped with bits and would stop functioning, a condition erroneously called 'information overload'. It is actually 'bit overload'.
    Information and all higher levels can not be shared with anyone else, it is only available to the brain that creates it. All of the higher levels must be reverse processed back to data before they can be communicated to another brain, a process I call sharing.
    Our brains are divided into separate areas with each area performing different tasks and most areas are in turn subdivided. All areas are interconnected in some manner, some more directly than others. Likewise our thinking is partitioned, we use different methods in different areas to think about different things, this why people can believe contradicting ideologies.
    Most people can only think about five separate data elements at one time, a few can handle seven, very few more than seven. We are pattern seeking creatures and this limitation restricts the number of data elements from which to discern a pattern. In most cases this does not cause a problem. For example, the seasons to determine when to plant our crops, the habits of the animals we hunt, the fish we catch, the leaders we chose, the alliances we form, etc.
    But this is a serious limitation when much more complicated patterns need to be analyzed. We compensate for this limitation by partitioning data and storing it in different areas of our brains. Then with difficulty we attempt to analyze the patterns across the areas. We have drawn the wrong conclusion in many such cases: how an economy works, global warming, systems, etc.
    I think restricted thinking is the most serious threat to our country and to peace. We must have more than one way of thinking, most people do, but a large number of people don't. Most people think politically when dealing with politics, mathematically when solving math problems, etc., some people only react.
    What most people don't know is that truth is limited to the system that proves it. Truth is not absolute and neither is it relative, it is limited. What is true for one system may not be true for another. For example, the sum of the angles in a triangle equals 180 degrees in plane geometry, but more than 180 degrees in spherical geometry and less than 180 degrees in hyperbolic geometry.
    A simple example, start at the north pole and go strait south until you reach the equator, then turn 90 degrees following the equator until you go one quarter of the circumference, then turn 90 degrees north and you will end up at the north pole 90 degrees from the direction you started and the sum of the angles will be 270 degrees.
    In the late 1940's Kurt Godel stunned the world of mathematics by proving (Godel's theorem) that every formal logical system must have at least three terms and one operation not defined by the system or else the system would be inconsistent. In other words, at some point the system would prove something like, two plus two equals some number other than four, but no one would know when such a result would happen. This means that we can not use our language, our laws, our ideologies, etc., for proving anything because all terms are defined in these systems and these systems will be contradictory at some point in their use.
    The corollary, a system will be consistent, if it does have at least three terms and one operation not defined in the system, is not true.
    A few years later he proved that a logically consistent system can not create all the true statements possible within the system. In other words, there are statements that are true within the system, but they can not be created by using the terms and operations of the system. This is known as the incompleteness theorem.
    Uneducated people are not aware of the many other such examples in science that prove the limits of science. The number of examples and their ramifications are so numerous that I can't remember and don't know all of them, so I will not even attempt to list them and I don't know a reference that contains them.
    Most people don't know their own ideologies and follow idiotologues without question. For example, Osama bin Laden. Osama violated a very important stricture in the Koran when he decided he could excommunicate another Muslim and therefore he and his followers could kill them and still go to heaven. Many other Muslims also violate this stricture.
    It is this blind unquestioning by followers that is the greatest threat to the world, the followers have severely restricted their thinking. We must always question and check what our leaders say and do.
    When values conflict, there is no solution. One or both sides must change. A simple example, when our children were teens the big issue was hair style and when they chose one style and it differed from ours there was an argument. The same thing happened with their choice of clothing, etc. A more complicated example would be Israel or Iraq.
    If one or more people place a certain value on something and one or more people put a different value on the same thing there will be a conflict and there is no solution. Problems may have a solution, but a conflict in values never does. Conflicts in values can only be resolved if one or both sides change their beliefs, their values, their meaning, or their interpretation of the thing involved.
    People don't understand that we place the value or the meaning on things, the values are chosen, the thing does not have the value they assigned to it, the value we assign is arbitrary.
    But it came from GOD.
    If it did then explain why there are so many different interpretations of what came from GOD. There can be only one answer, different people put a different interpretation or a different meaning or a different value on it. We placed the value on it, not GOD. We assumed that it came from GOD because that is what we 'WANT' to believe, we refuse to accept the fact that what we want to believe is chosen by us and no one else.
    Until people learn the difference between bits, data, and information conflicts in values will continue to be a fact of life. We assign the value to bits creating data and only after we analyze the data is information available to the person who did the analysis.
    I hope this will help you understand why we must continue to learn and to question. I hope you now understand the danger of the idiotologues. Their actions have contributed to global warming and certainly have delayed our response to it. When followed blindly they are the greatest threat to peace.

We practice self deception and maintain illusions in our country so we can continue to do what we want to do, we are right, we know how to do it, our way is the only way, but sadly this prevents us from improving our lot. Three of the worst are: tax cuts create jobs, we can grow our economy, and the GDP is an accurate measure of an economy.
Our impact on our world follows the following equation:

    If our population increases or decreases so do the other variables in the population impact equation. Therefore; this arithmetic applies to water, food, energy, etc. as well. Since we live in a finite world, the variables in the population impact equation cannot grow indefinitely. Therefore; contrary to what the politicians and the pundits keep telling us, we cannot grow our economy, because a growing economy is not sustainable.
    Consider an economy of one person. The GDP of one person can never be any greater than what that person creates. The value of the GDP will be arbitrary as determined by that single person. No single person would waste time creating an excess of anything, a single person would only create what was needed. A single person would not want to keep up with the Jones. A single person would not want to impress any one. A single person would not consider their time worth more than anyone else, they would not want an increase in salary. They would not be concerned with fashion.
    A single person would strive to be efficient so as to have more time to rest, play, and to enjoy the beauty of our world. The GDP of a single person would not change no matter if the efficiency was gained by using new methods, tools, animals, or a different source of energy because the amount of goods and services created would not change. But efficiency would definitely increase the quality of life.
    Now consider an economy of two. If the efficiency of both was the same, the GDP would double, but the quality of life would not change. Only if they took advantage of the ability of each other would the quality of life improve, but this action would leave the GDP unchanged. The value of the GDP would be determined by those two people. Again the value of the GDP would be arbitrary, but also relative as determined by the two people.
    Again, if the efficiency of the people remained the same, increasing the number of people would increase the GDP proportionally and only if they took advantage of the ability of each other would the quality of life improve, but again, this action would leave the GDP unchanged. Again the value of the GDP would be arbitrary and relative to the people involved.
    This is an idealized economy because it assumes that everyone is healthy, productive, and self sustaining, all of which adds more variables that influence an economy. But this idealized economy points out that the number of people is the largest single variable in determining the GDP and that the GDP is a arbitrary and a relative number. An economy can't grow except relative to the number of people.
    Now look at what happens when 'I want', 'I'm worth more than he is', and fashion enters the picture; inflation and excesses occur, superfluous jobs, superfluous goods, and superfluous services; efficiency declines and pollution increases, both decrease the quality of life; and changes in fashion cause the value of goods and services to fluctuate unpredictably which causes unpredictable changes in the GDP.
    The increase in population and/or the increase in inflation and/or the increase in superfluous jobs, superfluous goods, and superfluous services causes the illusion of growth. When any of these factors declines the economy declines. This is why our economy expands and contracts. It also indicates that our economy is not sustainable.
    Thus the GDP is not an accurate measure of an economy. A GDP per capita would be more accurate. The GDP certainly does not measure the quality of life.
    Our history also contributed to the illusion of a growing economy. Following World War II our economy was the only significant economy, we produced almost all of the goods and services for the rest of the world, at the same time our population was growing rapidly, the baby boom. These two factors created excess demand which caused inflation and caused wealth to flow into our economy causing the GDP of our economy to grow rapidly. As the other countries recovered and our population growth declined, demand for our production declined and our GDP declined. This is why manufacturing job disappeared, as other countries developed their own manufacturing, ours was not needed.
    To make our economy grow, the politicians, pundits, and producers promoted consumption via fashion, advertisement, and credit, but this caused inflation to increase at a more rapid rate as well as increasing the GDP. As debt increased it contributed to the rise in inflation.
    Inflation reduces the buying power of the consumer which reduces consumption and when coupled with a reduced rate of population growth the GDP declined which was followed by more government intervention, increased emphasis on consumption, and an increase in debt and the cycle has been repeated ever since.
    The next two statements are very important.

The GDP never paid a debt, only taxes pay debts. Government is not the problem, lying politicians, pundits, and producers are the problem.

    The GDP is not corrected for the increase in debt, for depletion of resources, or for pollution and it completely ignores the fact than market prices are arbitrary, how else can you explain the variation from moment to moment. Oh yes, it is because supply and demand changed, but both of these are arbitrary, most of the time based upon wants rather than needs.
    Inflation in the cost of construction is generally high and not well accounted for in the GDP. This hidden inflation along with debt inflation is sapping strength from our economy and manipulations of the Fed Funds rate will not change it. The Federal Reserve Board uses many different indicators of the economy when formulating monetary policy because of the deficiencies of the GDP.
    The pundits, politicians, and producers like to comment on how well the economy is doing by saying something like, 'The GDP increased by 4% over last year.' But they failed to mention the the population went up by 1% so the GDP went up, surprise, surprise, as if the GDP was independent of the number of people. Or they will say, 'Retail sales went up by 1%,' but fail to mention that inflation went up by 2%, so the increase in retail sales didn't even cover inflation. In reality retail sales went down.
    Geography determines the resources available to an economy . An economy can never be greater than the productivity of the workers and limited by the resources available to that economy. An economy can only trade excess production with another economy otherwise such action would impoverish the economy. Zero resources to exploit equal zero GDP. It should not be a surprise to learn that counties with no resources also have a poor economy as measured by the GDP. This fact should alert us to the danger of depleting resources, when the resources are gone our GDP will also.
    Consider an island nation who's people live by gathering fruits and vegetables and by surf fishing, completely self sufficient, they don't sell anything. Obviously their GDP is zero and why would they care. Their quality of life would be quite high, but to compare it with other economies would involve bias. From our perspective we would think they were rather primitive, but are they?
    From our bias, to improve their economy we would have to convince them to deplete their resources by gathering more fruits and vegetables and to increase their catch of fish so they could sell them to us, but they would have no use for our money unless we convinced them to buy goods and/ or services from us. Their economy would grow according to our standards, but not theirs, their resources would be depleted.
    If you think the above story is fiction, read our history and learn how our country has 'helped' other countries and to whose benefit.
    From my own bias, I would think that the only things they lack of importance to me is relief from pain and mental stimulation. I would think them to be rather brain dead. They could develop a mathematical system, but without other resources their knowledge attainment would be rather limited. Again, the lack of resources plays a dominate role and indicates why necessity is the mother of invention. A challenging environment is a stimulating environment. Again, resources play a role in intellectual development.
    They could have a GDP by creating a monetary system, they could use shells or something similar as their medium of exchange, their money would be worthless to us, but ours would be worthless to them. Then they could assign some of their people to surf fish and some to gather fruits and vegetables and then exchange products for shells. They could develop their own market prices and they could make their GDP as large as they like. The size of the number is an illusion, an ego gratifier, the number means nothing until it is compared to another number, in other words the size of the GDP is relative.
    Any and every medium of exchange is arbitrary, the value is determined by the people involved. We place the value on the medium of exchange, it has no value until we give it one. It doesn't matter if the value is determined by what we call a ' free market' or by political entity, the value is still arbitrary and relative.
    By assuming our value is real, we delude ourselves into thinking we are better, we are worth more, our way is better, more is better, bigger is better because like all living things we are a taking creatures and we think if we have more we are wealthy.
    Many years ago while I was watching the TV show 'Bonanza', Hoss returns from a journey to an isolated valley where another cattleman had hundreds of head of cattle and says he had met the wealthiest man in the world. But the other cattleman could not sell his cattle because of his isolation, so the question becomes was he wealthy or was Hoss using an arbitrary definition?
    Aren't we deluding ourselves? Aren't we judging another economy using our own arbitrary standards? I think we need to keep our ego's in check. Just because our pay check gets larger each year, that does not mean we are getting 'ahead'. The increase in pay must be compared to the cost of goods and services that we buy, the increase was relative and for most people it was a decline not an increase when compared to rise in the cost of goods and services we did buy.
    We are in trouble, but most people don't know it because they don't keep records and they don't do the simple arithmetic that dispels what they want to believe.

    Our government publishes a weekly crude oil and gasoline inventory report. The comments of the pundits following that weekly report would lead you to believe that the inventories are at the mercy of the wind and the waves. They say such things as 'A decline in crude oil inventories by two millions barrels was a surprise'.
    It may have been a surprise to a pin head pundit, but you can bet the ranch it didn't surpise the people involved in the oil industry and why are they making such a big deal about two million barrels, that is only one super tanker out of fifty six that must unload every week to meet our demand. So one or two tankers arrived to late or to early to be included in the weekly inventory, don't you think that is being a little bit stupid. And to imply that no one knew that a two hundred million dollar investment was behind or ahead of schedule is more than I can tolerate, I mean, how can anyone be so stupid. Whole departments watch inventories and shipments like a mother hen.
    A much more realistic report would be to report inventories in terms of 'days of supply'. It would also be a better comparison between years. The amount of oil inventory in terms of 'days of supply' has hardly changed since I first began working in the oil industry. If anything it has decreased because of the cost of carrying inventory.
    Now to ethanol from corn.
    Politicians have a very short time horizon which leads them to move too fast to make sure they are on the band wagon.
    There is absolutely no excuse for not making a feasibility study on any project. It doesn't have to be complicated, it can be what engineers call a back of the envelope calculation.
    For ethanol from corn it would go somethink like this. Corn has BTU value of about 7000 per pound, at 56 pounds per bushel gives 392,000 BTU's per bushel. Divide this by the BTU's per gallon of gasoline, about 140,000, giving 2.8 ethanol BTU equivalent gallons of gasoline.
    Now if our entire corn crop for the year 2004 of 11,800,000,000 bushels was converted into ethanol it would have been consumed in 39 days. That is a little over ten per cent of our demand and what would we feed all of our cattle, pigs, and chickens.
    If this calculation had been done we would not be subsidizing ethanol made from corn.
    Now the above calculation is not very accurate, but any refinement would reduce the amount of ethanol not increase it because one of the rules of nature is 'there is no free lunch'. In other words you can never get more energy out of system than you put in. Again, in other words, the total BTU content of ethanol produced can never exceed the amount of BTU's in the corn used to make it. This places an upper limit on the system which cannot be exceeded.
    It is this type of stupidity that makes me go ballistic. The above calculation is an extremely simple and fast feasiblity check and I find it completely incomprehensible that our politicians and pundits are not able to do it. Don't they have anyone on their staff with any brains and know how to use them?
    This is not the whole story, but it all I'm going to say at this time.

PS:I sent the ethanol calculation to several newspapers in April of 05, guess how many published it?

    A friend of mine is a cash crop farmer, he raises corn and soy beans. He has been using the futures market for many years. Here is what he does. Each spring he buys his fertilizer, herbicide, insecticide, and seed and uses each when appropriate. When he is done planting he knows about 90% of his costs because by then he has used most of the gasoline he will use for the year. He estimates how much gasoline he will use to harvest. He then calculates what price he needs to make a profit. He then watches the futures market and when and if the price rises to his profit price he sells 75% of what he estimates his yield will be. By doing so he guarantees 75% of his profit for the year.
    He belongs to a co-op through which he buys a share in heating oil futures for 75% of his winter heating oil usage during the summer when the price is usually low thereby fixing 75% of his heating oil costs. During the winter when gasoline prices are usually low he buys a share of gasoline futures for 75% of his estimated gasoline consumption for the next year. Again fixing 75% of his gasoline costs for the next year.
    Each fall he delivers beans and corn to settle his futures contracts and sells the rest at current market prices. This way he does not have to pay storage costs on his crops. By buying and selling futures he usually gets good prices for what he buys and sells and his income is steady. In fact he has done so well that he does not have to borrow money to operate his farm and he has avoided boom and bust cycles for the most part.
    Another advantage of using futures for his home heating and gasoline is that the futures substitute for storage, in other words he does not have to buy a large quantity and store it on his farm to get a good price. When he needs more oil or gasoline he simply sells a part of his part of the futures contract with the co-op to pay for his next delivery and only needs to store the amount of one small delivery truck for each product.
    What has happened in recent years is that more small business, even home owners, are doing the same thing. They are joining co-ops or taking advantage of the futures market through independent jobbers who will sell them a share of the futures market commodities that they consume. Large businesses have been doing it for many years, but recently even they have been using the futures market to a larger extent to protect themselves from rapid price increases.
    So it is not just the speculators who are contributing to rising commodity prices, more people and businesses have learned how to use the futures market and have added to the trading volume, but by doing so, it allows the speculators a greater opportunity to increase the volitility of the market.

    Let's get one thing straight, people always create waste, how else do you explain toilets and waste baskets. Since we are the government, our government will always create waste, so a much better goal would be 'How to keep government waste to a minimum'.
    Many times I have heard a politician say, 'If we eliminate government waste we could balance the budget'. Herein lies the secret to keeping government waste to a minimum: Don't listen to the lying politicians and don't elect them.
    Our politicians have always lied, mostly about each other, but since Senator Joe McCarthy and his communist witch hunt, the politicians began to lie more to us than about each other and Karl Rove, et al, raised lying to a new level of sophistication. The lie became the truth and the truth became the lie. It has reached a point where most people don't know the truth, leaving us very vulnerable to panic and anarchy because ignorant people rarely act appropriately when a crisis occurs.
    Since politicians want to be re-elected, they want us to think they are doing something, the bigger the better and soon because the next election is approaching. It doesn't matter if what they do is good for our country, only if enough voters think what they are doing is good for our country and vote them into office and here is where the sophisticated lying comes into play. Only if enough voters BELIEVE they are doing what is good for our country, will they be re-elected.
    Here are the four worst lies, in my opinion.

We can grow our economy implying we can do it forever.
Our world is finite, so obviously we cannot grow our economy forever and if you do some simple arithmetic it is easy to show we can not grow our economy. When our resources are depleted and/or our population becomes too large for the amount of resources we have, our economy will crash.

The free market can solve all of our problems.
How many people know the requirements and limitations of a free market. In reality very few markets are even close to being free and many markets can never be free, such as health care, police, fire, defense, etc. We force our health care system to behave as a free market and by doing so we are paying about four times what it would if we allowed some cost saving combinations that would severely restrict market activities. We could restrict expensive equipment to one hospital and require those in a given area to use that one instead of many hospitals each having one and being under utilized. We could use statistical techniques to stop doctors from doing many unnecessary procedures to prevent law suits. Their defense would be, 'I did everything I could' and that would be true, but much of it was not necessary. Death is necessary, so why do we prolong life when death is near. Was it really that important for Uncle Joe to live two more weeks in pain?

Tax cuts create jobs.
Yes, they do, but if you do the arithmetic you will soon see they are a terrible waste of tax dollars. Read 'The tax cut myth'. I have heard many politicians say, 'We should cut taxes so you will have more money in your pocket', but never say, 'But you will also have more debt'.

Home Land Security will keep us safe and prevent terrorism.
    We have thousands of miles of open borders patrolled only by coyotes and hawks that anyone can walk across and many roads cross our borders that anyone can drive across with out being inspected. Every day thousands of containers are not inspected after being off loaded from ships.
    Walls have never had a successful history.
    The best way to stop terrorists is to eliminate their source of money, so stop buying the products that despots sell to fund terrorists, drugs and oil.
    We have become very lazy, very few people will check to see if what the politicians are saying is true and even fewer will do the simple arithmetic necessary to check the feasibility of what the politicians are saying to see if it will save our tax dollars or have a cost benefit.
    So if we want to keep government waste to a minimum we must prevent the politicians from passing laws that provided for: pork barrel projects, special tax breaks for special interests, subsidies for special interests, wasteful government projects, such as bridges to nowhere, ethanol from corn, sending drugs that require refrigeration to a country that does not have electricity, etc.
    Government is not the problem, lying politicians are the problem.

    I read an essay that equated war with slavery and that is fine as far as it goes. It gave a very brief account of how it came about for the author.
    From the time people came together as tribes, killing and war has been justified by calling anyone who wanted the same resources we wanted, enemies, enemies were not people therefore they could be killed with impunity. The victors made slaves of the vanquished, if not physical slavery, taxes were extracted from them to pay for the war they lost. As the economy of the tribe progressed to our current state, we had to create new enemies to justify our actions and the 'golden chain' supplanted physical slavery, we have to pay our debts, our possessions own us.
    The essay implied we should change because of the untold misery caused by war. I do not envy any who experienced it. The stories of those who have was more than enough to convince me war should be eliminated, our goal should be peace as the essay also implied.
    The essay was correct about slavery to this extent: all but the top one per cent are wage slaves. While the same people do not stay in the top one per cent, some fall out and others rise to replace them, thus keeping the American dream (lie) alive. We deceive ourselves so we can continue to live the 'lie', we continue to spin the wheel of our economy which in turn perpetuates the deception, we think we are getting 'ahead', what ever that means. Because people resist change, very few are willing to do the simple arithmetic that would dispel the deception.
    Our economy is based on a lie, it must continue to grow forever, in order to grow we must consume, consume, consume. It is easier to keep our consumption increasing if we continue to increase our population, increase inflation, and increase our spending on a war machine. We must have an enemy, we have to 'get' the bad guys in order to continue the deception. While we have become more sophisticated, the veneer of civilization remains very thin. If we have an enemy we can continue to justify killing and war.
    The lie was easy to keep alive as long as there was a frontier because the constraints of a finite world could be easily over looked. The Great Depression was brought about because the loss of the frontier finally caught up with our economy, easy expansion could no longer take place.
    We needed a new paradigm to continue the lie. Subsidies became the new solution and Hitler provided us with an enemy. Following W.W.II Senator Joe McCarthy supplied us with a new enemy with his communist witch hunt and Eisenhower allowed the war machine to grow by not exposing the liars and tax cuts gave us more money to spend and we have followed this path ever since.
    When the communists fell, tax cuts increasingly became the new rallying cry. Spend, spend, spend, consume, consume, consume, accumulate, accumulate, accumulate, keep the wheel of our economy spinning, it does not matter if anything of value is created, ever onward, to where ever that is. It does not matter if our resources are dwindling, our environment is becoming polluted, tomorrow will be better, the politicians and pundits said so, how many people bother to check.
    Now the constrains of a finite world are beginning to close in on us and we don't have an enemy to blame. Look in the mirror America, look in the mirror. We don't want to look in the mirror and see ourselves, we are the bad guys. 'We have met the enemy and he is us', Pogo.
    Inflation is rapidly enslaving the 99% of the population. As our resources are depleted, anarchy will be the end result, desperate people do desperate things, and anarchy is certainly not peace.

   Now that demand is more than 1.5% below production, the price of crude oil has been falling sharply, but the price of gasoline has not dropped as rapidly. My guess is that the oil companies have signed long term contracts to protect themselves from price increases and now their cost of crude is higher than the spot price so they are keeping the price of gasoline high to cover their costs in order to keep their profits from declining.
   Market forces do work and they will force OPEC to reduce production to keep their profits up. In order to do so they will have to reduce their production down so that it is less than 1.5% above demand. If they don't I'm afraid the public with its short memory will go back to business as usual. Something we can't afford. People just don't understand how close we are to the brink.
   Have you ever read the story about the lily pad pond?
   It goes like this: A retired fisherman bought his own private lake. One day he noticed one lily pad, he had never seen any on his lake. He didn't think much about it. The next day he saw two, the next four and so on. As his lake became covered with lily pads he became concerned, but he thought the winter frost would kill them back so he forgot about them until several days later he noticed that they covered a fourth of his lake, the next day they cover half of his lake and the next day all of his lake and a week later all the fish were dead because the dying lily pads were consuming the oxygen as they decomposed.
   This story illustrates the difference between arithmetic progression and geometric progression. In less than a month his lake went from viable to dead because of the geometric progression of the lily pad growth and that is exactly what is happening to our population, our consumption, and our polution.
    Arithmetic progression and geometric progression can be compared using numbers and it would look some thing like this:
    Arithmetic    1    2    3    4    5    6
    Geometric    1    2    4    8   16 32
   Fortunately, our doubling time is measured in years not days like the lily pad story, but the time it takes to make changes is also measured in years. This means we can't wait until the doubling time equals the time to make changes because the next doubling will wipe us out before the change is completed.
   If we don't wake up and recognize what is happening the end will come very quickly before we can do anything about it.